Case Type: increase sales/market share.
Consulting Firm: Trinity Partners second round job interview.
Industry Coverage: Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Biotech & Life Sciences.
Case Interview Question #00123: The client Novartis (NYSE: NVS) is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland. It currently is the sixth largest pharmaceutical company in the world in terms of revenue ($41.5 billion in 2009) with a profit margin of about 20%, which is about the same as its major industry competitors 
(Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Roche Group, GlaxoSmithKline GSK, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck & Co, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly). However, their 2009 profits were down by 31% from 2007 levels, while industry leader Johnson & Johnson gained 22%.
Although Novartis has what it believes are superior products and good distribution channels, its rivals consistently have a larger market share. For the past two years, the CEO of this company has spent three times the industry average on advertising. There has been blanket coverage on major newspaper and television. Market research reveals that consumers show name recognition for most of the advertised products made by Novartis and the advertising campaign is more successful than hoped; yet sales remain slow. You have been hired as an external consultant to rectify the situation. How would you approach it?
Possible Answer:
huge investment on advertisement hardly matter with results but when advertisement is of pharmaceutical product,it has to check whether the product is OTC and being OTC product in which area and media has used for advertisement for eg malaria is for prevalent in eastern part of area as compared to rest part of area if we used more sales promotion strategy in rest of the part where malaria suspect is less the result will be futile because of non consumption,
secondly being more mass level of advertisement of pharma product the product sell more if local filed staff is attached with local dealers whom are going to push or sell the product because in pharmaceutical products more than 70 % product is sold by rate of margin or profits earned by chemist which really matters and by medium of which the product can be sold,being more popular advertisement the actual pusher ie chemist only looks margin because now local based countries pharma companies give quality equalent to MNC companies only goog local houses.
reduce the expenditure on lay publicity on newspaper, radio and TV ads.
Increase the prescription value by concentrating on doctors.
identify percentage of sales from each customer segment.
change product mix if possible.